GRA 8222 Financial Accounting (2024/2025)

GRA 8222 Financial Accounting (2024/2025)

Course code: 
GRA 8222
Department: 
Accounting and Operations Management
Credits: 
3
Course coordinator: 
Pål Berthling-Hansen
Course name in Norwegian: 
Financial Accounting (2024/2025)
Product category: 
Executive
Portfolio: 
EMBA Business Administration - Core Courses
Semester: 
2024 Spring
Active status: 
Active
Level of study: 
Master
Teaching language: 
English
Course type: 
One semester
Introduction

The set of financial accounts is usually the primary channel for reporting the financial affairs of any organisation. A thorough understanding of such information is absolutely vital for any senior level manager involved in the discussion of a company’s financial state of affairs. Financial accounting based information is also the starting point of the financial aspects of most decisions aimed at improving shareholder value.

Learning outcomes - Knowledge

Students are expected to obtain knowledge of the fundamental principles of financial accounting and obtain a thorough understanding of the financial accounting vocabulary. The course intends to give a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of developing a set of external corporate accounts. This is an important prerequisite to understanding how to use accounting based information for corporate control and decision making. In this it is important that users of such financial accounting based information understand the limitations of such information, and when the financial accounts need adjustments to cater for various applications.

 

Learning outcomes - Skills

The course will teach students to conduct specific transactions in the financial accounts, conduct year-end adjustments, and produce a set of year-end accounts. Students will then learn how to conduct different types of adjustments before any type of analysis can be conducted. Different types of analysis will then be covered in order to provide input for a control and decision making emphasis, and finally briefly discuss the communication of such analysis.

General Competence

The candidates will obtain the competence to reflect on the quality of financial accounting based information for various uses, and be able to evaluate the general quality of a set of financial accounts, especially in relation to the many financial scandals that have occurred over recent years that have not been directly identifiable through financial accounting based reporting.

Course content

Topic 1

  • The main principles of financial accounting
  • Posting financial accounting transactions
  • Completing year-end accounts

Topic 2

  • Regrouping and adjusting the financial accounts in preparation for analysis

Topic 3

  • Using financial accounting information for corporate control purposes
  • Earnings related issues
  • Capital structure issues
  • Liquidity issues
  • Other performance measures

Topic 4

  • Using financial accounting information for corporate decision making
  • Strategic decision making
  • Investment decisions
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Valuation
  • Operational decision making
  • Budgeting
  • Pricing decisions
Teaching and learning activities

1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. 

The course is conducted through a total of 24 hours of lectures and casework. 

Attendance at all sessions in the course is compulsory. If you have to miss part(s) of the course you must ask in advance for leave of absence. More than 25% absence in a course will require retaking the entire course. It's the student's own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/ It's learning or other course materials.

The course is a part of a full Executive MBA programme and examination in all courses must be passed in order to obtain a certificate.

In all BI Executive courses and programmes, there is a mutual requirement  
for the student and the course responsible regarding the involvement of the student's experience in the planning and implementation of courses, modules and programmes. This means that the student has the right and duty to get involved with their own knowledge and practice relevance, through the active sharing of their relevant experience and knowledge.

Software tools
No specified computer-based tools are required.
Qualifications

Granted admission to the EMBA programme. Please consult our student regulations.
 

Disclaimer

Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.

Assessments
Assessments
Exam category: 
Submission
Form of assessment: 
Submission PDF
Weight: 
100
Grouping: 
Individual
Duration: 
4 Week(s)
Comment: 
The students will be evaluated through a written assignment.
Exam code: 
GRA 82221
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Resit: 
Examination when next scheduled course
Type of Assessment: 
Ordinary examination
Total weight: 
100
Student workload
ActivityDurationComment
Teaching
24 Hour(s)
Prepare for teaching
20 Hour(s)
Student's own work with learning resources
36 Hour(s)
Self study, feedback activities/counselling and exam.
Sum workload: 
80

A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 3 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 80 hours.